My friend’s son’s birthday is coming up – and that’s reminded me that I never posted any pictures of the cake that we made for him last year! Shocking!
My friend John and I spent a dreary grey rainy day in the kitchen and this was the result. That was also the day when we first came up with the idea of a Snakes on a Plane Cake. Good times! :)
If I remember correctly, the snake was a vanilla sponge with a strawberry cream filling. The skin was white chocolate cream, I think; the eyes were marshmallows with chocolate dots. Yum.
A while back, I saw this baking mould, and the second thing I thought was, “Ooh! Pretty mini cakes!” – Because the first thing was, “DEATH STAR CAKES!”
So I bought the baking mould and I have made some pretty mini cakes – but of course I have been waiting for today to finally put it to the use that the Force wants me to put it to. :)
For Star Wars Day, I have bullied my zombie film group into watching the trilogy with me. (There are only three Star Wars films in my world. As far as I am concerned, no prequels exist. And neither do remastered versions of the original films.) So, I am baking cakes for the group again.
One thing you should know about my film group mates: like the manly men they are, they are deeply in love with unhealthy foods. It was only last week that they all agreed that any delicious kind of food could be improved by deep-frying it. And then they discussed whether something deep-fried could be improved by deep-frying it a second time.
So when I saw this recipe for a mayonnaise cake, I immediately thought of them. I personally find mayonnaise quite disgusting. I don’t like the taste, and the texture seriously disgusts me. But then I didn’t bake these cakes for me, and I must admit that (slightly) yuck ingredients are one of the items on my loooong list of reasons to bake. :)
In defence of Cukrowa Wróżka, please let me point out that the cakes are not disgusting at all. I made a trial run cake earlier this week and glazed it with a hazelnut glaze – lovely. Not overwhelming, though. I do have nicer cake recipes in my collection. But hey, that wasn’t the point.
I’ve used a vanilla icing with a dash of black food colouring to decorate the cakes. I ran out of time doing the decoration so it’s not as nice as I’d hoped but that’s life for you. Deal with it you must. :)
This post is a bit late… Sometimes I have other things to do than write my blog. Shocking! :)
On Sunday, we were invited to a special double-birthday-slash-welcoming-the-new-baby brunch at our friends’ house. And I couldn’t go. So I just sent my representative and a cake. :)
Passionfruit Cream Sponge
When I saw the recipe on chocolate CHILLI mango a while ago, it immediately had to go on my to-do list. Passionfruit are just too yummy, and I must say that seeing as I have a couple of friends who are gluten intolerant I was intrigued by the fact that it’s a corn flour sponge. I also have other friends who are generally intolerant, and they get cakes from me too – so it’s only fair! :)
You can see that I cut my cake only once; I had to use a bigger baking tin and my sponge was a bit too flat (or I was too much of a chicken) to go for three very thin sponge layers. But I think two layers work as well, and the cake looks nice with the passionfruit cream on top.
As I haven’t eaten any of it myself, I can only rely on second-hand information but apparently it’s nice. Yay. :)
For tonight’s party I am accessorizing with a double chocolate cake which looks like a mug of beer! If it weren’t for all my faults, that could easily make me the perfect woman! :D
I’ve used this recipe for my cake. Yes, another one from GoodFood. Have I mentioned that I am a fan of that website?
Some adaptations had to be made for the beer mug cake though. I used 2.5 times the quantities and a smaller tin (17 cm) so that I would get a nice big stack of cake layers. And I baked the cake layers separately, which took forever (as I only have one round cake tin the right size) but I think it was worth it!
For the decorations, I made some more of the ganache but with white chocolate instead, plus yellow food colouring. E numbers are my friends!
The mug handle is made from marzipan. I attached it to the cake with the help of wooden skewers. The glass bottom is a strip of marzipan; and the foam is whipped cream.
I am quite happy with the cake – especially considering all the thousands of things that could have gone wrong! Now the only massively scary potential for disaster left lies in the fact that I have to get the beer mug cake to my friend’s house…
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PS: I have been told that you can’t really tell the size of the cake from the photo… It wasn’t very small. The cake layers are 17 cm in diameter; all in all the cake was about 20 cm high. And it weighed about a ton. And it was NOT easy to transport, but it made it to my friend’s house safely. Phew!
You know what’s sad? I can’t tell you whether this cake is/was as yum as it looks (if I may say so) because I didn’t eat it. I gave it away. [sad face]
A friend helped me out the other day, and foolish as I am I asked her how I could return the favour. :) Nah, I don’t mind that cake seems to be the strongest, or at least most wanted currency among my friends. I can imagine worse scenarios!*
This is a chocolate sponge cake with a chocolate, cream and strawberry filling. Not exactly low in calories but my friend exercises so much, she needs all the chocolate she can get! :)
By the way, I actually used a recipe from a cookbook for this cake. And it went horribly wrong. So I made up my own chocolate sponge cake on the spot. Problem solved! Apparently I have come to a point where I bake better improvised impromptu cakes than with an actual official recipe. I don’t know whether I should be worried or proud! Probably a bit of both…
* I can imagine much, much worse scenarios. You do not want to know what’s going on in my head. Seriously.
You should know by now that I am a woman of refined taste. Especially, might I say, when it comes to cinema. I only watch really artistic films; life’s too short for anything less than … say …
LAKE PLACID!
For the uninitiated: shame on you. Watch this trailer and then go and buy the DVD so you can watch the whole film. Do it. Now.
So yes, this year’s feature cakes for our birthdays were actual feature cakes: creature feature cakes. :D I had more fun making them than should be allowed to have! :)
This cake’s a courgette cake, a family recipe and one of my all-time favourites. It’s very moist and lovely and slightly cinnamony. Yum. The croc is a toy, lazy me did not carve one out of marzipan or so … And the lake is made from water, sugar, food colouring and lots of gelatine. Not an easy feat for somebody with my capacity for patience but I pulled myself together and everything worked out nicely in the end!
However! Crocs are obviously not the only creatures who eat humans on the big screen.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, behold
SHARKTOPUS
Again, if you don’t know Sharktopus, your life is not as cool as it ought to be. Trust me. You know that you want to watch it.
The sharktopus is a vanilla biscuit rather than a cake but it looks cool and it’s yummy, AND it’s deadly on both ends! :D
I used my shark biscuit cutter and my octopus biscuit cutter for these cool little creatures, then cut off the biscuit dough shark tails and octopus heads and stuck the rest together before baking. A slightly tedious job, but it helps if you giggle maniacally.
You and whose army? – Me and my sharktopus army!
The third creature feature baking project was actually where the original idea for this theme came from. Last year I baked a snake cake together with a friend, so the only logical next step was …
Snakes on a Plane!
It’s actually called “Enough is enough cake” because I’m cool like that, dropping famous film quotes and all. :)
The plane is a lemon tray bake with LOTS of lemon sugar icing and seriously unyummy rice paper for the windows – but it was the right colour, and I think the taste is not strong enough to spoil the cake.
I baked a cocoa and coconut cake for the snakes and covered them in white chocolate cream cheese icing with lots and lots of added food colouring.
Right, that’s it for today. I’m off to plan next year’s birthday cakes… ;) All that’s left to say is:
Yeeeees, I said I had given up on the lime & yoghurt cake recipe… And I have. I never said I wasn’t going to try out a different recipe though!
So here we go. Sunday afternoon, coffee with our friends and lime bundt cake.
Recipe? Ah, there’s the rub. No such thing. I don’t even remember what went into the cake batter. I’m quite sure there were limes involved. But then that’s about it. (Not enough sleep, too many things I have to think about at the same time, not enough brain capacity. Sad story. But true.)
What’s more important: I really liked the cake. The texture was good; the taste of limes could have been slightly more intense but was still delightful.
And now I think I am going on a lime hiatus. In the next two weeks, I will probably have to do some more pumpkin baking to conclude my pumpkin fest, and I have three more ideas floating around in my weird little head. So stay tuned! :D
I was hosting a dinner party last night. I just love cooking for other people and – surprise! – I have friends who love eating. :)
Last night’s starter was a spicy pumpkin soup with mango, apricot & coriander chutney mini muffins (based on the recipe of my curry mini muffins); the main course was a braised beef pie – and for dessert I couldn’t decide which cake to bake. So I baked two. Makes sense, right?
Now, the first cake had to be a chocolate and peanut butter cake. As an avid reader of my blog ;) you know that I was unhappy with the chocolate and peanut butter cake recipe I tried out when I made the cake cups last week. I found it was too dry and overall underwhelming. So I went on a recipe hunt. And I found one that … well, let’s just say that this cake is NOT. DRY. I’m reluctant to post the recipe because I fear I might gain weight merely typing out the list of ingredients… also, I don’t seem to be able to find the original recipe anymore, so I can’t credit the creative mastermind who came up with this new definition of a rich cake. Sigh. I’m sorry; I’m a bit useless today.
Anyway, here it is:
Chocolate and peanut butter cake
Cake number two had to be lighter and fruitier, for balance’s sake and because I said so. I went for a sponge cake that’s topped with a layer of fresh, filleted oranges and an orangey fromage frais topping on top. Topped with a topping on top. That’s how this cake rolls.
Orange fromage frais sponge cake
It’s hard to decide which cake I liked better. The orange cake may be the winner because a second slice won’t make you feel sick. On the other hand, “a second helping will make you feel sick” could be considered as the very definition of an awesome cake, couldn’t it?
We went to a friend’s birthday brunch today, and I had been asked to bring a cake. When I came across Mary’s blog the decision was made. So this is my lime yoghurt cake.
I absolutely love the idea of the spinach-oil mixture; I love coloured cakes anyway, and I really like that you don’t have to use artificial food colouring for this cake. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that E numbers 100 – 199 are my friends, but it’s nice to have a range of options.
The rest of the recipe, however, won’t be remembered in this house, I’m afraid. The taste was absolutely nice but I was quite unhappy with the texture. My cake looked nothing like Mary’s either; I have the feeling that I made at least one mistake more than usual there.* Ah well. But again, the taste was lovely.
* I am fairly sure that I messed up converting the ingredients quantities from cups to grams. Silly American measurements! :-P
There are thousands of reasons to bake a cake. I think I may have discovered most of them, and experienced them myself. Including anger, pain, fear, aggression* … and Wednesday.
The reasons for today’s cake is mostly so that it can be destroyed and be turned into crumbs for tomorrow’s project. A noble death, methinks.
Nevertheless, the cake is lovely and I shall bake it again for simple mundane eating purposes. The taste is not intense but if you like sesame seeds and vanilla, this is one for you. In a spate of creativity, I whipped up some honey drizzle and served the cake – the part of it that was designated to be eaten – with the drizzle plus white chocolate shavings. And I am glad to tell you that this combination has been approved by today’s designated cake critics.
My friend’s son’s birthday is coming up – and that’s reminded me that I never posted any pictures of the cake that we made for him last year! Shocking!
